


After the Fall

by CorsetJinx



Series: Mistake in the Parting [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Canon Divergence, Cryostasis, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 18:09:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7278457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorsetJinx/pseuds/CorsetJinx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How many years have you been sleeping? How many hours did I throw away? Why does everything feel so unnamed?</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the Fall

“You don’t know how good you’ve got it.” He grumbles into the freezing air, metal and leather covered fingers drumming irritably against the cocoon of ice before him. It isn’t the first one in the room, not the first he’s ever seen, but so far the woman inside has managed to survive longer than her companions. A stroke of luck... but how long would it last for? How long until she succumbed to the unyielding cold and bitter ice that had seeped into the facility?

Mei-ling Zhou gives no sign that she’s heard him, just as she hasn’t for the past ten or so years.

Within the ice she simply looks asleep, crystals over the lenses of her glasses preventing him from getting a good look at her eyes. They’re closed, he’s aware of that, but some part of the man he’s become and the one he used to be wants to think that if he could see them it would make something about this easier.

His claws leave tiny scratches in the thinnest layer of her cocoon, but at almost a hundred degrees below zero even he couldn’t hope to chip her free. Not with the steady stream of cold provided by the platform they're standing on and the upper layer of equipment that stabilized the flow of air from the ceiling.

Reaper tells himself that’s the reason he hasn’t tried to kill her yet – a waste of bullets, even with his newfound abilities. That, and if he wanted to stretch the truth even further, and the thought that she wouldn’t be a threat even if she  _did_  wake up and survive.

Like this, of course, she’s harmless. A woman in ice, sleeping the time away in the hopes of rescue. The world is changing and she doesn’t even have the foggiest idea of it.

Overwatch, if it isn’t already, will be gone by the time she does wake.

Winston, the optimistic fool, can keep trying to convince himself otherwise.

Squinting through the sockets of his mask, Reaper tried to discern the contours of the climatologist’s face beneath the ice. The task pushed the vengeful tinge of his previous thoughts away – just enough to put them on the back burner. With a pass of his hand, still warm even though he could feel the chill of the room through his disguise, he wiped away some of the frost that had accumulated as he’d idled. It was foggy, but he could make out the paleness of her skin and the general shape of her face. Her hair would have been easier to spot if she hadn’t frozen herself while wearing her hood up – the blue cloth and white fur blending in more with the layers of her cocoon than the dark brown of her hair.

She had been a brunette, hadn’t she?

He doesn’t have any pictures to remind himself and his memories aren’t all that they used to be.

She used to laugh, he could remember that well enough. Got on with everyone or at least did her best to do so. They had never been particularly close even when he’d still been Gabriel Reyes, but in the privacy of the broken-down facility and the quiet of the room Reaper thought he might be able to admit that there were certain things about Mei that he missed.

It wasn’t like she was going to remember anything he’d said to her, in his last days as Gabriel or as he was now. Considering that he kept his few visits short – only stepping foot into this long forgotten facility to blow off some steam. Cool down, perhaps. There was no one here he need worry over, no one who would hear him. Even her... He wasn’t even certain she knew how to speak Spanish, let alone if she might have been able to understand the rants and curses he’d gone on in previous visits if she had been awake.

If memory served, the small woman had a grasp of English. Well enough to communicate with her fellow Overwatch agents. He had only exchanged a few words with her here and there over the years, before the accident that had driven her and her team to freeze themselves in the hopes of rescue. Before he’d grown tired of being overlooked, put off to the side while Morrison and those like him grew in recognition and forgot that he’d climbed every bit as far – farther even – as they had to get onto the pedestal of Overwatch.

He blinks, coming out of the haze of hatred without knowing exactly when he’d curled the silver gloves of his hand into the ice. The points had sunk in, making little fractures in the crystalline surface. He has to tug, several curses rising and passing his lips as he works to get his hand free. Before the frigid air flowing along the exterior of the stasis unit threatened to seal his digits in place.

The heat of his temper does nothing to melt the ice but the syllables of his preferred tongue bounce harshly off the metallic walls, mocking him as his fingers finally come free.

He’d almost think it might have been Mei holding onto him, in some small, impossible way.

But if she had liked Gabriel at all he was almost certain she would not like Reaper, not the mercenary he’d become and what he’d done to get there.

“I’d almost tell you not to wake up,” he growls at the sleeping woman, eyes narrow beneath his mask. “You won’t be disappointed if you stay as you are now.”

The door slides open when he moves to leave, only remainder of his presence nestled in the tiny fissures in the ice of Mei’s cocoon.

Those close over soon enough.

 

* * *

 

Her first breath since she went to sleep is weak. Thin. Not at all enough to fill her starving lungs. She gasps on her next inhale, and, through the clogging of her ears, it sounds like a sharp and cracking thing. The burn in her chest is bright and painful. The next thing she knows, she’s coughing, fumbling, unable to see because her glasses are iced over. Her limbs are all stiff and cold.

Even through the thick, fluffy layers of her clothes, Mei feels so very, very cold.

It’s getting better though, her breathing and the feeling returning to her limbs. Sure, she still can't feel her fingers or below the knee just yet, but it's progress none the less. There’s a sound that’s like a voice that she might recognize if only the slush would clear out of her ears, and they’d pop to let her process sound correctly. There are hands on her shoulders, lifting her arms, helping her to stand after nearly falling on the floor. When had she stumbled so? When had she nearly collapsed?

Her ears burn a little when someone pushes the hood on her head back, the tug of the pin in her hair a dulled sting that nonetheless provides a spark to drag herself out of the weariness trying to pull her back to sleep.

Her first words are mumbled with numb lips – she’d flush if she could recognize just how jumbled her voice sounds. Slurred and thick, pitiful. There’s an answer though, words from another mouth becoming clearer and more distinct as she regains awareness.

A warm hand smooths down her hair – or at least it feels like it. Mei’s only sure that the person responsible is very warm, and that’s what her body needs to work itself up to again. It feels familiar though, she manages to think. She hasn’t felt alone in a long time, except for patches in her mind that she isn’t sure what exactly was going on – likely the stretch of time where she’d been asleep.

Someone was with her though. Who, she doesn’t know – it couldn’t have been one of her team – but she is grateful to them all the same.

A pity she couldn't thank them.


End file.
